The diplomancer makes peace, but at what cost?

Nickname: turncoats

“Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.” — Prince Feisal, in Lawrence of Arabia

The concept of tribute and concession carries a strange economy. You make offerings and hope to engender indebtedness, or at least good favor.

The idea of a diplomat is a strange one. The diplomat is an intermediary, a loyal ally who is friendly with the enemy.

A diplomancer is more than a diplomat. You don’t just make peace from an enemy. In some way, you revere the enemy. You make sacrifices and offerings in hopes of currying favor. You give up that which is important to you – you betray your allies – in the name of peace.

And for those offerings, you are rewarded.

It’s not betrayal, you tell yourself. It’s compromise. Tribute. Breaking the ice.

But any time you make peace, you need to find yourself another enemy.

Gaining a minor charge: Do something nice for an enemy. The enemy must be more than just a rival: they need to have truly opposite goals to your own, without a common ground, and without an agreed-upon code of conduct. Your kindness must give the enemy some notable advantage, though it needn’t harm you directly.

Gaining a significant charge: Make a big sacrifice for the benefit of an enemy (using the definition of enemy for minor charges). You or your cause must be set back significantly, and your enemy must benefit in a way that affects the conflict.

Gaining a major charge: Diplomantic major charges are rare and hard to come by. They depart from minor and significant charges. The Diplomantic major charge requires brokering a peace agreement between two previously incompatible cosmic forces. Exactly how this must occur, how important the forces must be, and how involved the Diplomancy must be is not well-defined.

Taboo: You need allies. If your allies ever reject you, or you switch sides, you lose al charges. You can’t regain charges unless you have a distinct set of allies with a cause. Despite betrayal, the diplomancy requires a clearly-defined side.

Making peace with an enemy, or forming a truce or common ground will not violate taboo, but no more charges can be gained so long as the enemy stays friendly.

Symbolic Tension: The Diplomancy works for peace and amity, but she relies on the existence of conflict. A Diplomancy must constantly seek both peace and war, the needs of the diplomancer’s cause and the needs of its opposition.

Random Magick: Agreement, Concord, and Concession. Diplomancy makes offerings to an enemy, then expects the same in return.

Blast: Diplomancy has a nasty blast, but it’s usable only in defense. When someone attacks you successfully and does damage, you immediately use the Diplomancy blast, without taking an action or conscious direction. The charges are spent, and the damage is redirected to someone else within your sight range. This requires no conscious control – the diplomancer’s player decides. The only catch is that it cannot be suppressed: any time you take damage and have enough charges, the charges are spent and the damage is done to another human being within range. This can include the attacker or even allies.

Minor Formulas

Common Ground
1 minor charge
Looking into someone’s eyes, you gain instant knowledge of the most significant and relevent thing you both want. This might be anything from “we both want Johnny the Snitch to leave town unhurt” to “we both want to stay alive.” It’s pretty rare to find someone who shares no common ground with you, but if you ever do, it’s a Rank-6 Isolation check.

Non-Bluff
1 minor charge
Look into someone’s eyes and visualize something you’re able to do which would be unpleasant to that person. It must be something you’re actually capable of doing, directly or indirectly – it needn’t be something you actually intend to do. They’ll be aware of exactly what you’re visualizing, and they’ll know without doubt that it’s possible.

Silver Tongue
1 minor charge
The next time you use a skill like Charm, Lie, Distracting Physique, Intimidate, or whatever, you’ll get a +15% shift to the roll.

Stop!
2 minor charges
Everyone whose Mind score is less than your roll will take no action but to talk on their next turn. You are also affected, no matter what your Mind score is.

Diplomatic Privilege
4 minor charges
This is the Diplomancy minor blast. It will protect against any damage which is based on the sum of the digits of a dice roll (such as a punch, minor blast or an axe wound), and redirect the damage to another target of your choice within sight range. Note that this formula is automatic – it takes no action to trigger, and can be directed without conscious effort (the player decides), but cannot be suppressed by the Diplomancer.

Significant Formulas

Conference Call
1 significant charge
A long distance communication spell. You can bring a number of people in on the conversation equal to the ten’s die of your roll. Everyone involved will hear your voice, and you’ll hear theirs. They’ll also hear each other, but no one else can hear the voices, and only voices get carried. Everyone’s aware of the effect – you can’t use this to eavesdrop quietly – but the targets don’t have to be willing. You must physically visualize everyone you want to reach. Lasts about fifteen minutes.

Calling in Favors
1 significant charge
Only usable against someone you’ve gained a charge from, within sight range. They must do you a real, nontrivial favor of some kind. They can decide what, but it must be significant.

Let’s Make a Deal
2 significant charges
You can trade in intangibles. This formula is identical to the second level channel of Avatar: The Merchant.

Diplomatic Immunity
3 significant charges
This is the Diplomancy significant blast. It will protect against any damage which is based on the number of a dice roll (such as a gunshot, significant blast, or car crash), and redirect the damage to another target of your choice within sight range.

Contract Enforcement
3 significant charge
Usable when a deal is made. Nobody – including you – can openly violate the deal. It’s just not possible – the deal is enforced magically, and subjects are compelled to obey the agreement. Gray areas, interpretations and ambiguities aren’t resolved by this formula – if it’s not perfectly clear that the deal would be violated, this formula won’t enforce it. This formula lasts indefinitely.

Major Effects
Make two enemies want peace with each other. End a war. Make yourself the recognized embassador of any group, even one you weren’t a member of before. Manipulate fate such that a person or faction of your choice has good reason to ally with you.

What You’ve Heard

Martin Jones left his job at the embassy to go back to the streets where he grew up. He managed to forge peace between rival gangs, until his brother found out he’d been stealing guns and giving them to enemies. TNI was tracking him as a new kind of adept, and found him beaten up and friendless, They offered him a new life to explain his school of magick, but when he did, they decided they didn’t want him. Marting is one of the rare few who managed to leave TNI peacefully – he reached a fair accord and walked away. He’s still nervous about TNI, though, and looking for a good duke to latch onto, but it’s pretty hard to find allies when you gain your power from betrayal.